


Accidentally Meeting You

by Tehri



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memories, POV First Person, post-BotFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 04:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10429119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tehri/pseuds/Tehri
Summary: As Bilbo prepares to return to the Shire, he visits the tombs once more for a few final words that he never got to say.





	

Much of my life has been a happy accident. In fact, I should dare to say that even the years that came before my birth were full of happy accidents, such as my mother and father meeting. They did so love to tell me that story, of how my father visited the Great Smials with grandpa Mungo and was caught napping beneath a tree in the gardens by my mother. I remember I would laugh when they told me this; the actions of my father so familiar, that I could almost believe I had been there myself. He had an uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time, and it made for no small amusement.

 

My grandparents grudgingly approving of the match was yet another happy accident, I believe. My father liked to say that grandpa Mungo’s first words to him, upon hearing that a courtship was wished for, were if it had to be one of That One’s brood. Mother loved to say that grandfather Gerontius had to be stopped from going to sharpen an axe and have a “chat” with my father. Neither of them were best pleased, though I imagine it was mainly due to the horror of being somehow, even through marriage, related to each other. It was, in fact, thanks to my grandmothers that they were ultimately convinced.

Grandmother Adamanta said she found my father charming and polite, which was the end of that; she would never budge, no matter how grandfather ranted and raved. Nana Laura only quietly told grandpa that their son was happy, and was he truly the right person to say no to such happiness? Grandpa deflated, I was told, and instead tried to see what father saw in mother.

 

My birth should not have been; yet another happy accident. Something was wrong when she carried me, something that caused mother pain and trouble and which ultimately culminated in rendering her barren after my birth. At least that is what the healers said, and what was conveyed to me when I grew older and wished for siblings. Mistress Salvia had said that she was surprised that I was born at all. Father never liked to speak of that, and mother would be pale and quiet when asked. But they would both smile at me when the shadow passed and tell me that they were happy all the same.

 

I feel I must state that even knowing of Gandalf was a happy accident. Grandfather was the sole reason to why the wizard ever visited the Shire, and that time was rapidly running out, for grandfather was very old indeed by the time I was born. A hundred years my senior; I remember Gandalf saying he was very impressed with my grandfather’s longevity during a birthday party, though I was too young then to know what he meant.

It was that very party where I for the first time actually spoke to the old wizard. I was eight years old and thought I could take on the world, for all that I was small. I whacked him with a toy sword, and he played at the game as best he could, playfully fencing with me until mother came running to scold me for bothering him. But he laughed that booming laugh of his and ruffled my hair and told mother that he certainly did not mind. He sat me down and told me stories, stories of far-off lands and of heroes and villains, of Elves and Dwarves and Men.

I did not, in truth, remember him fully when he came to find me outside Bag End that April morning. His clothing bothered me, it seemed so familiar somehow. But it was his eyes and his kindly smile that I was ultimately able to connect to his name. It was a happy meeting – or should have been, had I not been so short with him when he said what he was looking for. No, I was my father’s son. I would not go beyond the borders of the Shire, traipsing about on an adventure. And yet, here I am.

 

Here I am, standing alone in a dark cavern by your tomb. I may not even see your pale and sunken face anymore; they have returned you to the stone, and your tomb has been sealed with a slab of stone that has a carving of your likeness on it. Yet, when I look at the carving, I do not see you. The eyes are too large, the face too round, the hair too short. I understand it is a choice made by whomever they managed to talk into carving this. But it is not you. The carving’s expression is carefully blank – yet another choice made by the maker. But whether you would believe me or not, you sometimes wore your heart on your sleeve. Your expressions could be surprisingly easy to read.

You would have looked like a thundercloud if you could see how Bard and Thranduil pressure your poor cousin. Dáin is unfailingly gracious about it; it doesn’t suit his personality. All it does is remind me of my uncle Isumbras when he took up the mantle as Thain of the Shire – a wild wolf suddenly reined in to become a normal dog. He loathed it, though he never said so out loud. Dáin is much like him, I imagine. Someone more suited for fights or treks through the wild lands rather than a throne room.

Balin told me once of how you were raised solely to become a king. The path of a blacksmith and that of a warrior was something you chose for yourself, in the rare moments you were allowed to do so. Or the moments you had to. This, I believe, is the difference between you and Dáin. While a lord in his own right, he has not been made to fit a certain slot in life – he has carved his position for himself and has made the Iron Hills his own. And yet, here he is, wearing a crown he never wanted and leading a people that he always thought of as yours.

I pray that, if you can hear me or see what is happening, you do not think of him as an opportunist. I've not known him as long as you, I will admit, but in this short time he has been nothing but kind. He wears the crown of Erebor for your sake, and no one else’s. He would rather be back in the Iron Hills – that is where his heart truly lies, I should think – but he would not abandon your cause. You are hailed as the one who reclaimed the Lonely Mountain, hailed as a king though you only held the title by right of birth and not through a coronation. With your nephews having gone with you to your ancestors’ halls, Dáin is simply the next in line.

 

Listen to me, prattling on and on about everything and nothing. I talk and I talk and I talk, but I come no closer to the heart of the matter. I cannot think of what I am to do. Return to the Shire, certainly – but return to what? I have been gone for so long that I should imagine my more vulture-like relatives would have claimed everything I hold to my name. My uncle Hildifons was missing for two years before being presumed dead – but it took so long only because my grandfather refused to give up hope before Gandalf returned to say that he found not even the slightest rumour of him.

And I? I have not yet been gone for a year. I doubt anyone has tried to search for me. Even those of my cousins who would have worried would not consider leaving the Shire for my sake. No, if I return there, I am likely to return to a life that is not my own. And yet…

Yet, if I stay here, I will likely be just as uprooted as I was at the beginning of our journey. That I am one of the Company will hardly matter in the long run. I do not belong here, no matter how much I may wish that I did. What would I have here? Everything I own, everything I hold dear, is in the Shire. All I know here is pain. I could not remain here for the rest of my life.

The heart of the matter, I said. The heart of the matter is simply this. All my life, I have lost those I hold dear – my grandparents, my parents, many aunts, uncles, and cousins – and now I have lost you as well. All my life, I have lost one person after another. After but a few months, where I thought that perhaps I would be allowed at least this small happiness, I lost you. You took me away from the only life I knew and practically gave me the world. You showed me that there was so much more to Middle-earth than the Shire alone.

I wonder what the years would have brought for us, had you lived. I imagine a world where you lived to claim the crown and where I stayed in Erebor, choosing to leave my roots behind; I could make a good life for myself here, filling my days with this and that. Perhaps I could have helped with diplomatic relations. But more than anything, I would have stayed for your sake, and for mine. Leaving you behind to have only letters once in a blue moon would be too painful. I would have learned, or so I tell myself, to live under the laws of your people.

More often an image flits across my mind of you having given the throne to Fili and come with me back to the Shire. You spoke so often of your time as a blacksmith, and how you missed it. Perhaps you would have taken up your craft once more. We could have lived comfortably together, for all that I know you would miss your kin.

But there is no point in imagining, is there? There is no point in dwelling on what-if’s and would-have’s. “If you only sit and dream, the world will run away from you,” as my da liked to say when I was wool-gathering. “Dreams are all well and good, but if you want one to come true you cannot simply wait for the stars to form new constellations.”

 

There is no point, I tell myself now when I look upon the carving on your tomb. Our story is over; the dragon is dead, the Mountain reclaimed, and your cousin is likely to mutter fond curses under his breath every time he speaks your name for the rest of his life. And here I am, once again left with nothing but memories of someone I cared for.

Meeting you was indeed another happy accident in my life, though it brought sorrow in its wake. Forgive my bitterness; it is a side of me that I was loath to show during our journey, but one that clings to me no matter how I try to rid myself of it. I am only just past fifty, and yet I am more bitter than any hobbit I know. But what do I have to my name? A reputation as an oddball, heaps and heaps of memories, prying relatives and a home half a world away that has likely been sold.

I am bitter. Do you know that I had practically no one in my life before you and the rest of the Company whom I could call a true friend? Adalgrim and Sigismond were the closest to it, but we are cousins. We grew up together. But a friend? I can’t recall that I ever had one. And I never had someone I could claim to love, either; not the sort of love you give your kin, that I had limitless amounts of. But someone I could imagine spending the rest of my life with – that love I gave to you, and only you.

 

I don’t want to leave. Heavens know I don’t want to leave. A part of me wants to – somehow – open your tomb, lay down by your side and simply stay there. Another part wants to wander the halls of Erebor until I eventually pass out from exhaustion or starvation. Balin has asked me what I will do. I think he knows that I will return to my quiet corner of the world, but he knows just as well that I would rather not.

My mum once said that she never thought of being away from the Shire forever when she wandered outside its borders; this was simply because her heart always belonged there. Because her family was there. Because my da was there. I am not my mother. I left the Shire and found my home. Or rather, I left the Shire and I found my heart. As poetic as that sounds, I believe I would be more inclined to smile if my heart could, oh, I don’t know, simply fling open this tomb and sit up right now and ask what day it is.

Well, perhaps that is a little bit too childish.

 

I will be leaving in a few days, I believe. Gandalf has said he will travel with me until we reach the borders of my homeland. From the Brandywine bridge and onwards, I will be alone. But the old fellow is getting antsy – he would have wished to leave days ago already. He has given me the small kindness of waiting until I am ready. Of letting me mourn, if only for a short time. “Memories can be thought of along the road,” he tells me, and I know he is right. There are memories waiting on every step along our journey back. Every little accident, every little memory will bring another reason to remember you.

Well, I suppose this is goodbye. Farewell, Thorin Oakenshield. I was lucky to know you.


End file.
